27276 - Laboratory (1) (G.A)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the workshop the student should be able to independently formulate and plan a research project or an intellectual pursuit using the specific tools that have been acquired. The student should be able to work in an autonomous and organized way; to critically challenge even its own positions; to learn from the discussions with others. The student should possess academic rigour and precision.

Course contents

Workshop on local archives – IV edition

The workshop is open to the students of the History degree program affiliated to the History and Cultures – DiSCi department of Università di Bologna. It will take place during the 2017/2018 academic year and will be organized by the State Archives of Bologna and the association “Il Chiostro dei Celestini. Amici dell'Archivio di Stato di Bologna”, in collaboration with: Archivio Generale Arcivescovile di Bologna; Archivio Storico della Città metropolitana di Bologna; Istituzione Gian Franco Minguzzi della Città metropolitana di Bologna; Fondazione Gramsci Emilia-Romagna; Historical Institute Parri Emilia-Romagna; CISL Bologna; School of Political Sciences of Università di Bologna.

The workshop will be divided in three distinct stages:

1. The cycle of workshop meetings that will take place in the months from September to December 2017; it will be organized in twelve 2-hour seminars (for a total of 24 hours) e will take place on Fridays from 11 am to 1 pm.

The aim of the meetings is to offer to the students who will attend them an outline, as broad and as comprehensive as possible, of the variety of archival sources essential to historical research which are available at several archival institutions located in Bologna. The various collections and archival typologies that will be analyzed have been carefully chosen and selected by the archivists according to the value that they represented for historical studies in the past but also according to the potential that they still have for scholars even today, and with consideration of the difficulties that typify the comprehension of their internal structure and the consultation by researchers.

The meetings will be arranged as follows:

At the State Archivies of Bologna

1. The archives of the Commune and Signoria periods; by M. Giansante (friday 29/09)
2. The notaries archives; by di D. Tura (friday 06/10)
3. The archives of the Governo misto period; by F. Boris (friday 13/10)
4. The archives of the Napoleonic and Restoration periods; by P. Infantino (friday 20/10)
5. The archives of the period following the Italian Unification; by C. Binchi (friday 27/10)

   At the Archivio generale arcivescovile di Bologna (archibishopric general archives)

6. The Church archives; by S. Marchesani (friday 03/11)

   At the Fondazione Gramsci Emilia-Romagna

7. The archives of the Italian Communist Party; by S. Alongi (friday 10/11)

   At the Archivio Storico della Città metropolitana di Bologna (historical archives of the metropolitan area)
   

8. The Province archives; by M. L. Bongiovanni (friday 17/11)

   At the Istituzione Gian Franco Minguzzi della Città metropolitana di Bologna

9. The sanitary archives; by A. Casagrande (friday 17/11)

   At the Historical Institute Parri Emilia-Romagna

10. The Resistance archives; by L. Alessandrini (friday 01/12)

    At the historical archives of CISL Bologna

11. The labour archives; by D. Fioretto (wednesday 06/12)

    At the School of Political Sciences of Università di Bologna

12. The photographic archive of Rodrigo Pais; by G. Gambetta (friday 15/12)

2. The second stage during which the students will do an individual research on the archive records at the consultation rooms of aforementioned institutions, with the objective of producing a paper that must be presented to the tutor.

3.  A third stage, which can be done at the same time of the second stage, consists of three 2-hour meetings with the librarians of the History and Cultures – DiSCi department of Università di Bologna, during which bibliographic online research and the use of data banks and digital resources will be introduced. The three meetings will take place on the second week of January 2018 at the Department.

 

Readings/Bibliography

Readings and resources mentioned to the students during the meetings will be available online through the “Materiali didattici” link.

Teaching methods

The workshop is a collaboration with the archivists of the various institutions involved. A special attention will be dedicated both to organizational issues and systems of document storage and to the historical relevance of the archival collections which will be analyzed during the workshop.

Assessment methods

The workshop will be completed with the presentation by the students of a written essay. The essay will have to be organized in three parts:

I. A brief account of the course, pointing out the meetings, the themes or the features which have been most interesting. A subjective evaluation whether the student has been aided and enriched by the meetings. (2 or 3 pages at most)

II. A brief description of the archive records on which the individual research has been done; the appropriate historical context of the sources has to be provided as well. (3 or 4 pages at most)

III. The elaboration of a research hypothesis based on the archive records which have been examined. The student will have to explain how the records could be used on a research and what specific features or issues could be included on plausible research. (4 or 5 pages)

The final length of the essay should be between 12.000 and 15.000 characters, blank spaces and footnotes included.

Office hours

See the website of Maria Malatesta